Sometimes I lay in bed with my fiance laying next to me asleep and I think about how we came to be where we are today. It started when I had to move to a new department my senior year of college because the hospital made me move. I met the man of my dreams, and I realize now how much I had missed before he came into my life. This is our story, from the very beginning.
"Hello?" I asked looking into the room. The room was lit only by a small light on the desk, leaving the rest in shadows. Someone had an open laptop on the desk and I could see a line for ear-buds leading towards the person who was sitting back away from the desk in the shadows of the room.
"What can I do for you?" I hear a robust male voice ask from within. He leaned forward into the light and I had to blink to make sure I was seeing who I thought I was. I had seen him everyday at work, and I had always looked at him and prayed that he would notice me.
"I'm looking for a James? I'm supposed to work this shift with him so he can train me." I respond trying to keep my voice even.
"You must be Holly." He says smiling, making my heart leap up into my throat.
"Yes, are you James?" I ask stepping into the room and closing the door softly behind me. He stands up and waves a hand and I have to blink as the lights come on in the room.
"Yeah, that's me. Rich said I'd be training you, but he neglected to mention how cute you were. Sorry about the lights, they have a tendency to go out when you sit still for too long." James says before taking out his ear-buds.
I shake my head and pray that I'm not blushing about the cute comment that he had just made, I was 5'10" and a brunette with hazel eyes. I was slim for my figure, but somehow had inherited large D breasts from my mother. I was what you would call an hour glass. "I understand, they do that where I work in the Hospital as well." I say walking towards him with my hand extended. He takes my hand and shakes it, smiling down at me. He stood at about 6'5" and had brilliant blue eyes. His hair was a very short dirty blonde and his hand made mine seem tiny in his.
"So what brings you to my department if you already work in the hospital?" James asks raising an eyebrow.
"They brought in several new volunteers for my department, and since I'm on the payroll they decided to move me here to be of help to you and to the others in the office. Basically from what I have been told I'm a gopher, and that you're my new boss." I say looking around. The world of inputting medical records looked like it was going to be a boring one.
"I work evenings after my classes are out, Jessica works during the mornings, Andrew works in the afternoons, and the three who work before me all have a, what did you call it? Oh, right "gopher" that helps them out in the office. Generally we don't get files in at night that need to be put in, especially since we upgraded the system to be all computerized."
I look at him and try to catch my breath again. I was going to have to avoid making eye contact at all costs if I didn't want to hyperventilate every time I looked at James. "I understand. So what do you do at night?" I ask looking towards his desk and the empty one that I could now see was up against it, so that the workers sitting there would be facing each other.
"Mostly homework, and monitoring the system. Sometimes we get back-up of paper files from the earlier shifts, and sometimes we have to monitor the downloads that the new system is undergoing. If you want to get started I have a couple of files that I'm putting in, and I can teach you how to do that part." James says noting that I was staring at the desks.
"I would like that." I say looking back towards him and smiling. He walks to my desk and pulls my chair over to his desk and places it next to his. He sits in his and pats the other chair as he smiles at me. I walk over to the chair and sit down, looking at his screen.
"Your work laptop has the programming on it that you'll need and nothing else. I generally pull up a radio station while I'm working and listen to it, or you can bring in your iPod like I did tonight." He says pulling an ear-bud to his ear and re-inserting it.
"So basically it's like the computer in the lobby. Use it for what you need, but nothing else. We could bring in our laptops to do stuff on though." I say as he pulls up the program on his computer. I saw a lot of blank lines that needed to be filled in, but it looked pretty self-explanatory.
"Andrew and Jessica bring in theirs, but they have them approved through the IT department. It takes knowing the right people to get that allowed. Jessica and Andrew both have an influential parent in management that pull strings for them though." James says opening a manilla file on his desk and puts it in the middle of us.
"So we type what's here into the program?" I ask looking down at the face sheet. James nods and continues typing where he had left off.
"And we have to scan the other sheets into the electronic file." James says looking over at me quickly. He pauses and offers me the other ear-bud. "Read me the next line and we'll get through this chart faster and you can start tomorrow night on your own stack of charts." James hands me the chart and I scoot closer so that we don't end up pulling each others ear-bud out. He smiles and I read the next line.
While reading I can't help but realize how good he smells. He smells like soap, and an underlying scent of something that was unmistakeably man. I couldn't get enough of the smell, and wanted to be surrounded by it for as long as possible. We finish the face sheet and he takes the file from my hands, dwarfing them with his massive hands again. I shiver slightly as he pulls his hands away from mine and he scans the rest of the chart into the computer. He closes the file and places it face down on top of a small stack of other folders. He grabs another from the pile next to the done ones and hands it to me.
"Next one. Hopefully we'll get these done before we have to leave for the night. I hate having to work over-time." James says before turning up the volume on the iPod. I notice that he had only been playing country music and make a mental note of it. I realize that I'm humming along with the song when I'm not reading out loud and stop.
"Sorry." I mumble before reading the next line.
"For what?" James asks confused as he types the information I had just read out into the face sheet on the computer.
"Humming." I say before reading the next line.
"Doesn't bug me. Your humming sounds better than mine does." James says smiling at me. He pauses to stretch and puts an arm behind me on the back of my chair.
"Smooth." I say rolling my eyes at him, while on the inside I was silently freaking out about his arm almost being around me.
"I try." James says winking at me. I shake my head and read the next line of information to him. We continue like this for a while and I begin to relax slightly into the back of my chair. He wasn't scary, and I was getting used to being around him.
